NOAH's day services were never a luxury

Monday

Aug 27, 2007 at 2:00 AM

As volunteers who covered the desk Tuesday mornings at the NOAH Shelter, who often cooked and helped feed the guests who came there, and who supported the shelter in other practical ways, we think your Aug. 21 story "Hyannis shelter ends day services" is incomplete.

As volunteers who covered the desk Tuesday mornings at the NOAH Shelter, who often cooked and helped feed the guests who came there, and who supported the shelter in other practical ways, we think your Aug. 21 story "Hyannis shelter ends day services" is incomplete.

You report that NOAH's parent organization, Housing Assistance Corp., decided to terminate day services because they were underutilized and because the money saved is needed to continue to provide shelter services.

The many homeless men, women and adolescents who depended on NOAH's open door would question that day services were underutilized. Especially on those very cold and very hot days when NOAH was a safe place for a homeless elderly woman, a pregnant teen, a street couple desperate for respite from the pavements, to come and sit.

We believe an organization with a true commitment to address the many and complicated roots of homelessness on Cape Cod, an organization not content to just provide night shelter, but to eliminate its need, would find another way to balance its budget.